A license will define what others may or may not do with your data. You may choose to assign a broad license that allows anyone to do whatever they like with your data, or you may assign a more narrow license that restricts their use to strictly non-commercial activities and requires attribution of the data creator whenever it is used.

CC Attribution (CC BY): This license allows others to distribute, remix, tweak, and build upon your work, even commercially, as long as the original work is properly attributed to you.

CC Attribution-ShareAlike (CC BY-SA): This license allows others to remix, tweak, and build upon your work, even commercially, as long as the original work is properly attributed to you and they license the derivatives under the identical terms.

CC Attribution-NoDerivs (CC BY-ND): This license allows others to redistribute your work for commercial or non-commercial purposes, as long as it is passed along unchanged and in whole and properly attributed to you.

CC Attribution-NonCommercial (CC BY-NC): This license allows others to remix, tweak, and build upon your work non-commercially, as long as the original work is properly attributed to you. Derivative works do not have to be licensed on the same terms as the original.

CC Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike (CC BY-NC-SA): This license allows others to remix, tweak, and build upon your work non-commercially, as long as the original work is properly attributed to you and the derivative works are licensed on the same terms as the original.

CC Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs (CC BY-NC-ND): This license allows others to share your work with others as long as they credit you. Your work can not be changed in any way or used commercially. This is the most restrictive license.

Creative Commons also provides guidance on the use of their licenses with data and databases.

Open Data Commons

Open Data Commons (ODC) offers three license options that were created specifically for data/databases:

ODC Public Domain and Dedication License (PDDL): This license is similar to the CC0 license in that it imposes no restrictions on the use of your data/database. Others are free to copy, distribute, and use your work; produce works from your data/database; and to modify, transform, and build upon the data/database.

ODC Attribution License: This license is similar to the CC BY license in that it allows others to copy, distribute, and use your work; produce works from your data/database; and to modify, transform, and build upon the data/database, as long as they provide you proper attribution.

Open Database License (ODbL): This license is similar to the CC BY-SA license in that it allows others to copy, distribute, and use your work; produce works from your data/database; and to modify, transform, and build upon the data/database, as long as they provide you proper attribution and any new works created are made available under this same license.